WORDS are fickle in their attachments, and the word "
ballad " has grown elusive of definition. Technically speaking, because it is sung to music, the sentimental " ballad" of the Palm Court has more claim to the name than Scott's " Proud Maisie." But apart from fine nineteenth-century derivatives like the latter, there is nothing in our literature bearing any resemblance to the taut, laconic, anonymous narrative poems of the Scottish BOrder reprinted in this volume. The conception of the book is excellent ; a fifty-page essay prefaces a long florilegium. But while the selection is consistently inter- esting, and equipped with a full glossary of Scots and Middle English, the essay never quite comes to grips. 15r. Housman has devoted most of his space to a discussion of the sources of the ballad themes—in places as different as Norse saga, Celtic legend and obscure local history. This does little more than testify to the ballad-mongers' hunger for matter. What calls out for attention is the striking attitude of these poets to their stories. How were their eyes drawn so surely to the searing detail ? Whence came their perfect knowledge of the power of silence ? What is the history of their underlying stoicism ? Dr. Housman makes in passing one suggestive observation: the ballads of other countries seem also to come from frontier regions. Otherwise his essay tends to be diffuse, and in its critical parts rather washy (" how poignant ") • it lacks in fact just those virtues that make
Previous page
